Bhubaneswar: ICICI Academy for Skills (ICICI Academy) is an institute set up by the ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth to provide vocational training to the youth from economically weaker sections to help them earn a sustainable livelihood. The Academy at Bhubaneswar aims to provide relevant and practical training to the underprivileged youth in Office Administration skills. It has a capacity to train over 8 batches annually. The duration of the training is three months.

Speaking about this initiative, Ms. Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank said: “We recognized skill development as an important area of focus as part of our efforts in the nation’s socio-economic development. Bridging the critical gap between manpower availability and employability is important to provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for everyone to grow and prosper.

With this focus, emerged the idea of setting up skill academies for vocational skill building, and ICICI Academy for Skills was launched in 2013. We took a holistic approach in our efforts and apart from providing free of cost job-oriented training, we are ensuring that these underprivileged youths are able to find employment upon completing training. Employment is arranged through our network of industry partners. Through the skill academies we are providing training in 11 skills – 7 technical and 4 in office skills. We have significantly scaled-up our training capabilities over the years and currently there are 24 skill academies across the country.

Today, through ICICI Academy for Skills, Rural Initiative and our Rural Self Employment Training Institutes (RSETIs), we have trained over 1,56, 000 youth. In this fiscal alone, ICICI Foundation aims to train 1.2 lakh youth. I am proud to say that by March 2018, we aim to achieve a milestone of training over 2.5 lakh youth.”

Details:
The ICICI Group has also been actively involved in imparting free-of-cost vocational training to the underprivileged youth through the ICICI Academy for Skills. Along with Rural Initiative for training of villagers in locally relevant skills and Rural Self Employment Training Institutes (RSETIs), over 1.56 lakh underprivileged individuals have been trained since inception.

The Academy at Bhubaneswar aims to provide relevant and practical training to the underprivileged youth in Office Administration skills. It has a capacity to train over 8 batches annually. The duration of the training is three months. To be eligible for these courses, one has to pass at least standard 10 and be between 18 and 30 years of age. All the training programmes include training on communication skills, financial literacy and orientation for adapting to an organised working environment.

In addition to the training, the Academy provides free uniforms and a meal to the trainees.
ICICI Foundation has tied up with various industry leaders as ‘Knowledge Partners’ help in co-creating the course curricula, content and training of the trainers.

Since its launch in July 2015, the academy at Bhubaneswar has trained over 850 trainees. It offers office administration courses exclusively for women.

ICICI Foundation provides placement assistance to trainees through industry partnerships and has continued to achieve 100% placement for all the trained youth. Till date, over 1,000 industry partners have recruited the students who are trained at various centres. Companies like Annapurna Microfinance Pvt. Ltd. Sambandh Finserv Pvt. Ltd., Bluechip Corporate Investment Centre Ltd., Formsdotstar Pvt. Ltd. and SMC Securities Pvt. Ltd. among others have recruited trainees from the Academy at Bhubaneswar.

About ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth (ICICI Foundation): It was founded by the ICICI Group in early 2008, with a view to carry forward and build upon ICICI Group’s legacy of promoting inclusive growth. ICICI Foundation seeks to promote inclusive growth in India by contributing to the key enablers required for widespread participation in economic opportunities in the country. Through focused initiatives in the identified areas including primary healthcare, elementary education, skill development and sustainable livelihood and financial inclusion, ICICI Foundation is working towards building capabilities and developing innovative models that can be replicated and scaled up in future. ICICI Academy for Skills operates under the aegis of ICICI Foundation.